


The Donnie Daycare

by KnightA3, TheLoonWatches



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Adam - Freeform, Arista - Freeform, Donnie forced to interact with children, Donnie is going to suffer, Gen, Marco Kools, Molly Kools, and April too I guess, bug-slugs, elijah - Freeform, kids being kids, mostly - Freeform, rachel - Freeform, slimeballs i mean, the other turtles are fine with kids, we got:, whoa I got a bunch of kids in this and all of them are feral
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:26:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29911398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KnightA3/pseuds/KnightA3, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLoonWatches/pseuds/TheLoonWatches
Summary: When April calls from her new job at a daycare, Donnie knew it was going to be a bad day. The adults had disappeared, leaving April alone with six toddlers. So she enlisted the help of her four best friends.One problem, though: Donnie is not much of a fan of kids.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	1. The Happy Turtles Daycare

**Author's Note:**

> If you know me from my other (and more popular) works, I have a penchant for writing stuff that hurts. Fortunately for you, this will most likely not hurt quite as bad.
> 
> This is something my sister and I came up with one night and it was absolutely hilarious, so here I am writing it. Enjoy.
> 
> (PS. Loon is the main author. KnightA3 is more like a co-conspirator that helps with ideas for Donnie's suffering)

The moment Donnie heard the phone ring, he knew it was going to be a bad day.

He half-rolled his eyes as he picked up his phone and held it against his ear with his shoulder as he tinkered with his latest project on the table. “You are conversing with Donatello.”

“Heeey, Donnie,” April said in that voice where she was going to ask something. “Have you, I don’t know, felt any earthquakes lately?”

This made him raise one drawn eyebrow. “Nooooooooo. . . ?”

“Okay, well. . . I just felt an earthquake and now all the adults at my job are gone.”

Donnie stopped his hand just before he started welding. “Okay, that’s- wait, what do you mean by adults?”

“Weeeeellll. . . .” The dread was already setting in. “I’m working at a daycare right now-”

“Nope.”

“Aw, c’mon, Donnie! This is my first day and I can’t call any of the parents- I don’t know how to get on the computer-”

“Then just call the police-”

“Oh nuh-uh, I am  _ not  _ getting the police involved cuz I just  _ know  _ this is some mystic mumbo-jumbo happening here and I’d  _ really appreciate it  _ if you got over here right NOW! Oh, just a second, Elijah, I’m talking on the phone right now~”

Donnie pinched the space between his eyebrows. He wanted to say no. He  _ really  _ wanted to say no, but what came out of his mouth instead was a defeated, “Okay, okay, I’ll get us down there, just send the address or something.”

He could practically hear the smug grin on April’s face. “Thank you  _ sooooo  _ much!”

* * *

“So why’d April call us?” Mikey asked as he leaped between two rooftops. He rolled across the gravel of an office building then jumped onto a ridged air vent.

“Yada yada, daycare, yada yada, no adults.” Donnie mimicked April’s blabbing with his hand as he hopped from a fire escape to a building’s ledge. He would have preferred to use his hovercraft  _ but  _ it was daytime, and they were supposed to keep a low profile so Area 51 didn’t take them away and cut them open before Donnie did it first.

“So we’re babysitters now? Ugh, just when I thought we were getting respect.” Leo, ever the show-off, did a backflip from one building to the next. 

“All we have to do is call the parents or find wherever the adults went for their coffee break and take care of everything else,” Donnie said after a salto sideward.

“Can’t we stay for a little bit? I kinda like kids.” Raph jumped and rolled over another building’s gravel. He narrowly missed being spotted by a lady washing her dishes.

He could have avoided being noticed entirely via teleportation,  _ but,  _ in Leo’s words, “Baby needs her rest.” Which was just code for, “I can’t get the portal thing to work right now.”

“Yeah, what are they gonna tell their parents? A bunch of turtle people showed up?” Mikey tittered, hanging onto Raph’s back.

“Yeah, they could say that and wouldn’t it be weird if  _ all  _ the kids were talking about turtle people?” Donnie said.

“So a couple of kids say they saw turtle people? Big deal,” Leo interjected along with a head spring. “The grown-ups will just chalk it up to aliens or something and we’ll be scot-free.”

“Ah, yes, ‘our children were abducted by aliens.’ Scot-free indeed.” Donnie deadpanned. 

“Look, all I’m saying is that they won’t be looking around in the sewers for aliens, now would they?” Leo said with a shrug and smug smile. Donnie rolled his eyes.

“Whatever, I’m just gonna find the computer, hack in, and deal with whatever mystic thing is happening. I’m not going to have slimy, little pre-adults touch me with their little grabby hands.” Donnie shivered at the thought.

“We gotta turn down this avenue!” Raph hollered.

Leo swung around a flagpole before launching himself along the rooftops of the avenue. “What? And miss the widdle angews?” he mocked in a baby-voice, holding his clasped hands up to his cheek.

“Over my dead body.”

“That can be arranged!” Mikey yelled as he jumped onto Donnie’s back and just as quickly leaping away out of Donnie’s murderous grasp. His laughter echoed against the bricks as he cartwheeled over the edge and down into an alleyway. Raph, Leo, and Donnie followed suit.

Hidden between two office buildings was - of all things- the Happy Turtles Daycare. Complete with a painting of smiling turtles on the brick wall.

“Ooooooooor the parents will think that some people in costumes came! We’re basically the mascots,” Leo said.

“Show us a smile, Donnie! You can’t go in unless you smmmiiiilllle!” Mikey poked Donnie’s face, only for it to be slapped away.

“Stop.”

Raph piped up, “Look, there’s April.”

Indeed, April was gazing out of the front glass doors, smushing her face against the glass and looking around anxiously. Once her eyes roved over the alleyway, she spotted them and waved at them to hurry. They quickly scanned over the parking lot for any passersby, then sprinted across as April held open the doors for them. She tried to pull the door closed, but it was a soft-close system so April was straining herself for nothing.

“THANK GOODNESS YOU’RE HERE!” April whisper-shouted once the doors were shut. “I didn’t know how long I could keep them entertained.”

Mikey walked further into the daycare lobby, looking around. “So this is a-AAAAAAA-”

Raph caught Mikey by his shell just before he fell into a washing machine sized hole in the ground. He was still flailing his arms as Raph pulled him back.

“Oh, yeah. . . forgot to tell you about that,” April mumbled.

“You forgot to tell us about a giant death hole?” Leo asked.

April shrugged defensively. “I  _ just  _ found it after I hung up with Donnie.”

“How deep does it go anyway?” Donnie said to himself. He snatched a pen from the lobby counter and dropped it down the hole, listening for its impact at the bottom. Evidently, there was none. “Huh, that’s not good.”

“Oh, really? I thought this was normal,” April said sarcastically and crossed her arms.

“So where are the kids?” Raph asked, slightly excited. It wasn’t every day he got to interact with slimeballs; i.e. children.

“Oh, I left them in the kiddie room, they should be fine-”

“April?”

All five froze, then slowly turned around to the source of the tiny voice. A boy no more than three stood at the entrance of the hall, staring with wide eyes at the four giant, humanoid turtles.

“Hi, Elijah,” April said nervously. “These are my friends. This is Raph, Leo, Mikey, and Donnie! Say hi, guys!”

All four said a collective “hi.” Some more enthusiastic than others.

“Can you say hi back?”

Elijah continued staring, particularly at Raph, the largest of the bunch. He hesitantly raised one hand and waved. “. . . Hi.”

Awkward silence penetrated the lobby. A couple of beats passed before Elijah shuffled over to April, pointedly avoiding the strange turtle men, and motioned for her to bend down so he could whisper into her ear. A not so quiet but still trying to be quiet, breathy whisper passed his lips, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Oh, um, okay, let’s go, then. Guys, follow me, I’ll show you the kiddie room.” April straightened back up and held out her hand, which Elijah accepted. They took the lead down the hall as the rest of them followed. Donnie hopped over the hole.

“So we’re just gonna ignore the hole in the ground?” he questioned.

“Well, we gotta get the kids  _ home _ before we do anything about  _ that _ .” Leo answered, walking backwards and shrugging.

Donnie rolled his eyes again. 

April stopped in front of a door covered in colored paper, creating a picture of little, happy turtles playing in grass on a sunny day. She opened the door with a bit of a flourish. “Hey, guys! I have some friends here I want you to meet!”

Five little pairs of eyes looked up at the door from their individual activities. A boy and a girl were in the process of pulling a toy snake away from each other, two girls sat at the short table and were busying coloring (one on paper and the other on the table), while another boy (the shortest of them) was taste-testing the plastic fruit at the toy kitchen. All stilled. . . 

Then the taste-tester started crying.


	2. Attack of the Pre-Adults

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case anybody needs to know:
> 
> Adam (red-headed) and Arista (blonde) are white; Molly and Marco are Latino; Elijah is black; and Rachel is Asian.
> 
> You can imagine them however you like, I just like to be aware of a character's race before I imagine their appearance. There's nothing I hate more than imagining a character looking one way but finding out that you got their appearance all wrong the entire time.

Evidently, since Elijah had reacted just fine to the turtle aliens, April assumed the rest would too. That idea was immediately bulldozed once another kid started screaming.

“Alright, I’m gonna go get in the computer- have fun, byyyyyyeeeeee!” Donnie said as he escaped down the hall.

“Hey! It’s okay!” Raph assured nervously. He stepped into the room, which sent the blonde girl from the table scrambling away screaming.

“Arista- no, it’s fine!” April called after her. But Arista ignored her in favor of squirming into the toy cabinet and shutting the door. “You get out of that cabinet this instant!”

“Hey, little buddy, it’s okay,” Mikey helplessly attempted to comfort, crouching down in front of the first crying toddler. “We’re not so scary when you get to know us.”

The toddler continued crying.

“C’mon, it’s ok- YAOW!” Tiny teeth sunk into his elbow. He spun around to his attacker, a girl with a ponytail. “What the heck?!”

“I’m an ALLIGATOR!” She proclaimed, chomping at Mikey.

“Yo, it’s not nice to bite people.”

“Alligators bite people.”

“You’re not an alligator, though.”

“Yes I am!”

“No you’re not!”

“Yes I am!”

“No you’re not!”

Leo jumped when a tiny hand touched his leg. “Whoo! Okay, personal space!”

The other girl from the table, the one with pigtails, looked up at him with big eyes. “Are you a turtle?”

“What tipped you off? My good looks?”

The girl ignored that question and turned her attention to his back. “Is that a sword?”

“Wow, I’m surprised you know what a sword is.”

The girl pouted, folded her arms, and said in a matter-of-fact tone, “My mommy says swords are dang-rus.”

“Well, your mommy’s wrong, cuz swords are awesome.”

“My mommy’s  _ not  _ wrong, she’s the smartiest person in the world.”

“Nah, I think I met smarter.” Leo smirked and raised his eyebrows.

The girl stamped her foot and rephrased for his fragile, turtle mind, “Nuh-uh! She’s the smartiest person in the  _ galaxy. _ ”

“Yeah, and why’s that?”

The girl held up two fingers. “She knows  _ two _ lan-gua-ges.”

“Uuuuuuh-huh, hey, why don’t you go bug that big turtle man right there, in the red?” Leo lifted her up by the armpits and twisted her around to face said turtle man.

Raph seemed to figure out the code of gaining the childrens’ trust. He simply sat down criss-cross-applesauce and started rolling a toy truck around. The boy who was fighting for the toy snake relinquished the snake and approached carefully, wiping his snotty nose on his sleeve.

Raph mimicked sound effects in tangent with the toy truck’s driving. He “screeched” along with the truck making a sharp turn around another car. Pretending not to pay attention to the child eyeing the play.

Hesitantly, the boy knelt down and grabbed a toy car, crawling forward to intercept the truck. Due to the collision, Raph made an explosion noise; causing the boy to giggle.

“Arista! You can’t stay in there forever!” April pulled at the door handle, weak against the three-year-old grasp on the door.

Arista responded with a “Mmah!”

After leaving Leo, the girl with pigtails walked up beside April, placing her hands on her hips. “You better get out of there, ‘Rista.”

“Molly, honey, this doesn’t concern you, go play with Raph.” April said, letting go of the door momentarily so as to surprise Arista when she let her guard down.

Molly pouted and stomped away, pointedly ignoring the big, red turtle man in favor of the smaller, orange turtle man.

Said orange turtle man, however, was still arguing with the girl who bit him. “No, you’re not!”

“Yes, I am!”

“Nuh-uh!”

“Yah-huh!”

“Nuh-uh!”

“Yah-huh!”

“Nuh-uh and one!”

“Yah-huh and two!”

The taste-tester, upon realizing that the turtle men might not be so bad, had calmed down enough to sniffling and watching the exchange before him.

Molly carefully stepped around the argument, and stood over the taste-tester. “C’mon, Marco,” she said, grabbing his arm and pulling him up. She led him to the cabinet where the TV stood, but was loath to find the blue turtle man kneeling down in front of its open doors.

“Raggedy-Ann, Barbie, Dinotopia: Quest for the Ruby Sunstone? Ugh, don’t they have  _ good  _ stuff at this daycare? Like Jupiter Jim or Lou Jitsu or something. . . ?”

“Just because Lou Jitsu was what you watched as tiny turtle children,  _ doesn’t  _ mean it’s okay for little kids,” April retorted, waiting for Arista to relinquish her hold on the cabinet door. Once the door creaked open slightly, April pounced, ripping the door open and snatching the back of Arista’s shirt. Arista screamed and flailed her limbs, kicking April’s forearm and making her let go of her shirt.

Arista fell and scrambled away, barreling straight into Adam and trampling across his face. In which, making Adam wailed.

“Nuh-uh a hundred!”

“Yah-huh a thousand!”

“Nuh-uh a million!”

“Yah-huh a gillion!”

Before Mikey could retort with an even bigger number, Arista slammed into his shell and toppled over. Mikey turned and reached out to her, “Hey, are you ok- OW!” Arista bit his fingers.

Arista was suddenly lifted off the ground by the back of the shirt. Raph held her away, just out of range of her swinging fists. “Okay, you need to calm down.”

April ran over to try and restrain Arista, but couldn’t get past the defense of flailing limbs.

Adam leeched onto Raph’s leg, crying into his thigh, a boot print visible on his cheek.

Molly stomped back over, clearly not done ripping into Arista. “‘Rista, you are being re-dic-oo-lo-” but she never finished because of Arista’s foot smashing into her forehead. Molly flew back, rolling head over heels. . . and started crying.

“CRAP! WHERE’S THE FIRST AID?” April scooped the wailing Molly up with one arm and scuffling through another cabinet with the other. 

“MY NAM’ IS RACHEL!” the girl who bit Mikey yelled, jumping up and pulling down his arm. Though Mikey didn’t have the time to acknowledge that fact as Marco clamped onto his leg and refused to let go, mewling to himself.

“Raph! Help me!” Mikey yelled, only to find that Arista had chomped down on Raph’s hand. Out of reflex, Raph yelped and tried to shake her off, but she held fast.

The room filled with screams and cries and wails and snot and tears and-

“WHO WANTS TO WATCH THE SEVENTH BROTHER?!”

The record player from hell screeched to a halt, all parties snapping their attention to the source. Leo held a VHS case in the air. Slowly, with all eyes following it, he lowered his hand and cracked open the case. He pressed a button on the block TV sitting on the main cabinet, its whirring stabbing into the pregnant silence. Carefully, Leo placed the VHS into the holder, pushed it in, and waited for the TV to register that that was its cue. Finally, the TV screen flashed blue, then fizzed to life, the title screen appearing for a cartoon puppy and six rabbits.

All was still as Leo pressed “play.” The title glowed as a gentle violin played, followed by terribly-done CGI houses. The camera panned over the words “Feature Films for Families.”

When the cartoon owl woke up and addressed the audience with an Irish accent, Rachel strode forward and plopped herself down in front of the TV. Marco was the second to sit down, both entranced.

Arista relinquished her hold on Raph’s hand, swinging slightly by the back of her shirt as she stared at the screen as well. Raph cautiously lowered her to the floor, where she crawled up next to Rachel to sit.

The distraction was enough for April to find an ice pack and hold it to Molly’s forehead. Molly sniffled, but otherwise seemed to recover.

Adam eventually let go of Raph’s leg, ignoring the movie in favor of returning to the toy cars on the floor.

And all four teenagers breathed a collective sigh of relief.

* * *

“So, how’d you know that the movie would work?” Mikey asked, sitting on the floor and Marco in his lap. He and the other children watched as each of the rabbits introduced themselves to Tiny the puppy through song. Molly and Adam idly rolled toy cars to and fro.

“Oh, y’know, I have a way with children,” Leo boasted.

“You had no idea, did you?” Raph deadpanned. Which only served to make Leo defensive.

As Leo tried to plead his case, April pulled out a bag of pretzels to add to the kids’ snack-time. She set out six plates, then stopped. She whipped around and quickly counted the number of toddlers-

“Crap! Where’s Elijah?!”

* * *

Donnie found the computer room well enough. Sure, it would have been easier to  _ ask _ , but he wasn’t going to risk getting stuck in the hellstorm that everyone else was in. No, he was going to do the thing he actually came here for and solve whatever mysticism was going on here as fast as possible.

He flicked the light on, an uncomfortable second passing before it finally flickered on. The relatively small room was lined with foldable tables and wires connecting to several computers. Papers had been thrown haphazardly to the floor, as if whoever held them before couldn’t be bothered with putting them down properly. And neither did Donnie bother with picking them up.

He jumped in a chair and spun around a bit before sliding up to one of the computers. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road,” he mumbled, hooking up the computer to his forearm’s tablet.

“Hey,” a voice said from the doorway.

Donnie winced, the exasperation pulling his face into a frown. He tried to ignore it.

“Hey,” the kid said, more insistently. And closer.

Donnie continued typing.

“ _ Hey _ .”

Type-type-type-type-type-type-type.

“HEY.”

Donnie groaned and turned around in his chair. “ _ What _ do you want?”

The one called Elijah stood behind him, with an expectant if nervous face. He glanced around, as if there was some other entity that would shame him for what he was about to say. Once he was sure the coast was clear, the boy cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Question marks were practically floating around Donnie’s head. “Then, go. . . ?”

“I don’t know where it is. . . .”

“How do you not know where it is? And why would you think  _ I  _ know where it is?”

After a moment of processing, Elijah shrugged and made an “I dunno” noise.

Donnie “ughed” and turned back to the computer, shooing the boy off with a flick of his hand. “Go find someone else to take you.”

“They’re all busy.”

“How could they  _ all  _ be busy? There’s four of them.”

“. . . They’re busy.”

Donnie rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Well, I’m more busy, now shoo.”

Silence followed, so long that Donnie thought the kid had left, and he almost breathed a sigh of relief. That is, until the kid asked, “Whaddya doin’?”

He shut his eyes and sucked in his lips, willing the little patience he had. “I’m hacking into the daycare’s system.”

Silence. “Why?”

Donnie’s eyes narrowed, suspicious of where this was going. “So your parents can get here already. . . .”

“. . . Why?”

“So they can pick you up.”

“Why?”

“So you can get out of here.”

“Why?”

“So you can go do weird kid things, like sticking things up your nose or something.”

“. . . Why?”

Donnie groaned louder and spun around in his chair to the questioning child. “Well, why do you wear that shirt? With the weird hippo-turtle thing?”

Elijah looked down at his shirt, holding out the bottom hem. “Cuz I like it. . . .”

“Why?”

“Um, Mom told me to wear it-”

“Why?”

“Um. . . .” He fiddled with the hem of his shirt, glancing at the walls uncertainly.

Donnie leaned in close to the kid’s little face. “Yeah, how does it feel?”

Elijah's face crumpled into confusion and intimidation. Slowly, he pointed vaguely to the hall. “There’s a bird . . . I gotta go catch it. . . .”

Donnie spun back to the computer. “You do that.”

Elijah shuffled out of the room, off to find his imaginary bird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked the chaos. I tried really hard to make it as chaotic as possible.


End file.
